Well, the suspense is over, and the banner of the newest communications conglomerate has finally surfaced as B COM3 Group, replacing an interim name of BDM Inc.
But media, and printers in particular, may well have a nightmare because, as a logo, it’s b|com, but B COM3 when the corporate name is used in text.
B COM3’s roots stem from the Jan. 31 merger of the Leo Group, whose most prominent units are the Leo Burnett Co. ad agency and media-management firm Starcom Worldwide, and MacManus Group, whose flagship agency is D’Arcy Masius Benton & Bowles and MediaVest, a media-buying service. The Leo and MacManus banners are gone.
The rationale behind the “B” is that it’s derived from “beacon,” a source of light or inspiration, according to what was postulated at a Tuesday media briefing at the holding company’s new headquarters in the Leo Burnett Co. building.
Nothing wrong with that, of course, but Burnett followers may well connect the “B” with that ad agency.
Those in technology may confuse the new banner with 3com, a client of FCB Advertising. Speaking of FCB, parent Foote, Cone & Belding Communications in late 1994 became True North Communications, a banner intended to embrace growth opportunities in communications and servicing client needs.
The exponent “3” stands for the three firms, including Tokyo-based Dentsu Inc., which has taken a 20 percent equity position in the new holding company.
This column believes BCOM might be a very suitable ticker symbol when the firm comes out with a public stock offering. Such a move is expected in the next 12 to 18 months, reiterated Roger Haupt, B COM3’s chief executive officer.
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The media were told that variations of the new banner were suggested by various offices within Leo and MacManus.
Those two groups finished 1999 with total revenues of $1.93 billion, and capitalized billing of $15.7 billion.
Whatever concerns there are over corporate identity, B COM3 is “the world’s premier advertising and marketing communications company,” said Roy Bostock, the firm’s Manhattan-based chairman.
Bostock will be challenged on that score by other communications biggies, but B COM3 has many resources and expects to make more via acquisitions.
On hand were no fewer than 15 representatives of Dentsu, Japan’s biggest ad agency, headed by Yutaka Narita, its president. Dentsu has a 25 percent share of the ad business in that country.
Dentsu, whose annual revenues are a bit below those of B COM3, is aiming to make a public offering in the fall of 2001, when the firm will be celebrating its 100th anniversary. When asked if B COM3 will take an equity position in Dentsu, Haupt said he wouldn’t rule out that possibility, though Bostock added that the subject hasn’t come up in discussions.
Like anything new, it will take a while to get used to B COM3, but as one of my colleagues said, “it sure subliminally comes across as `be calm.'”
Or are they trying to play off the many dot-com names on the Internet?
Good-bye, Bob: To his legion of friends in the Chicagoland advertising-magazine publishing community, the late Robert T. Mahoney is being remembered as the “supreme mentor” by media consultant Shari Wall, and “a high priest in the business” by retired Petersen Publishing exec Duane Placko. Mahoney, affectionately known as Bob, once considered priesthood before opting for a career in magazine ad sales, most notably at Fortune magazine in Chicago, where he worked for nearly 20 years. Wall and Placko were among attendees at a wake Tuesday at the Donnellan Family Funeral Home in Skokie. Mahoney, 73, died Saturday of cancer. “There wasn’t a situation where Bob couldn’t provide guidance,” recalls Wall, who interfaced with him when she was a media director at ad agency J. Walter Thompson Co. Chicago. Mahoney, an avid golfer, was a longtime member of Evanston Country Club, where only 2 years ago, he carded a hole in one. The Bob Mahoney I knew was at the very top in his professionalism, the relationships he built and his contagious enthusiasm.
Strictly Personal: Birthday greetings to Rusty Anglin, 52 (Tribune); John Terlato, 40 (Pacific Wine & Spirits); Timothy Patrick Mullins, 45 (E.J. Mullins Co.); Wade Thoma, 40 (McDonald’s); restaurateur Georges Cuisance, 67 (Kiki’s); and Ed Moser, 50 (Matha MacDonald).
On the move: Jacob Drake to group VP, and Audrey Wittemann to VP, both at GCI Group Chicago. . . . Julie Grzetich to a VP, account director at Frankel.